


Come to Journey's End - A Wonder(ful) Years Story

by elrhiarhodan



Series: The Wonder(ful) Years Verse [18]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Coming Out, F/F, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death (non-canon), alternative universe, wonder(ful) years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 10:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In <a href="http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/280850.html">For the Ends of Being and Ideal Grace</a>, Neal and Ellen Caffrey, his aunt, are reconciled after a long estrangement.  This is that story of how that happened and why she said what she did.  It’s also a story without a happy ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come to Journey's End - A Wonder(ful) Years Story

**Author's Note:**

> Please be advised, this story contains expression of homophobia, non-canon death of a canon character (who dies in canon), grief, reference attempted sexual abuse of a child.
> 
> Many thanks to for the Latin liturgy, and to for reminding me that Hanukah doesn’t end until sundown tonight, so this story isn’t really late.

**February, 1987**

“What’s a six letter word for ‘newly arrived’?” 

Neal looked up from his textbook, startled. Peter rarely asked for help with the crossword puzzle. “How about novice?”

“Hmmm, maybe.” Peter started to fill the word in, but frowned. “It works, almost. The ‘n’ and the ‘e’ are right, but one of the down clues seems to need a ‘b’.” 

Peter grumbled a bit more and Neal had to smile. He loved watching Peter figure out problems. Well, he loved watching Peter. And most simply, he loved Peter.

“Ah, not ‘novice’ but ‘newbie’. You were close, but no cigar.” Peter folded up the paper and tucked it into the seat pocket in front of them. “Nervous?”

Neal shook his head. “Nah.”

“Seriously?” Peter gave him a look.

“Okay, a bit. But Aunt Ellen’s cool. She’s one of the most open-minded people I know – after Aunt Cathy and Uncle Joe.” 

“But you’re still nervous.” 

“Yeah, I am. I mean …” Neal looked around, satisfied that no one was listening. “Coming out is a big deal.” Six weeks ago, on Christmas Eve, he and Peter had come out to Peter’s parents. Actually, that wasn’t quite true. They had planned to tell Aunt Cathy and Uncle Joe that they were together, but Uncle Joe had stolen their thunder, letting them know that he knew that they were gay. And that it didn’t matter to him.

It had been such a terrible and wonderful night. He and Peter had been expecting the worst: that they’d be thrown out, that Peter’s parents would disown him. Instead, his parents made it clear that they – Peter and Neal – were free to love, and that they would be loved, no matter what. The memory of that unconditional acceptance, so unexpected, still made him want to cry.

Neal hadn’t seen his aunt at all during the winter break. She’d retired again, but this time, it was permanent. Ellen had sold the little house he’d grown up in and was moving to someplace warmer. For almost two months – from right after Thanksgiving until just after he and Peter had to go back to school – Ellen had been house-hunting in Florida. They’d talked on the phone a few times; Neal had even told her that he was through with his mother. He even told her why, and Aunt Ellen understood. But he couldn’t come out to her over the phone. 

Monday was Washington’s Birthday so there were no classes. He and Peter had decided that they’d go back to New York this weekend and tell Aunt Ellen. It was only right and only fair, since they’d come out already to Peter’s parents.

The train had slowed to a crawl. It always did through this part of Connecticut. Something to do with the condition of the tracks.

Peter was getting antsy. “I wish you’d have let me drive – anything would be faster than this.”

Neal sighed. They’d had this argument before. “I hate the Jeep. It’s cold and uncomfortable.”

“Okay, you could have driven. You’ve got your car in Cambridge now.”

He did, finally taking the little BMW roadster back with him. “I didn’t want to. It’s not a great car for winter driving. Besides, I need the time to study. I’ve got an exam on Wednesday. Anyways, the train is nice and we don’t have to deal with the traffic., no ice or snow or worrying about whether we’re going to make it home alive.”

“Is that a comment on my driving?”

“No, of course not.” It wasn’t, not really. Peter wasn’t a bad driver; he just took a few more risks that Neal was comfortable with, especially in that Jeep.

The train finally began to pick up speed outside of Stamford and soon enough was heading towards New Rochelle, the next to the last stop before Manhattan. Peter’s parents were picking them up, and Neal thought he saw them as the train pulled into the station.

It was Uncle Joe and Aunt Cathy, bundled up against the chill of a windy February morning, standing next to a shiny new car. “Thought we’d come and get you two in style.”

The drive back to Brookville Falls was an easy trip along the parkway and Neal enjoyed sitting with Aunt Cathy in the back seat. 

“You doing okay?” She put a hand on top of his and squeezed lightly.

“I am. All recovered from the pneumonia.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Her eyes were way too knowing.

“I’ll be fine. Aunt Ellen is like you and Uncle Joe.” Neal couldn’t imagine his aunt behaving any differently from his surrogate parents. She’d been such a strong and loving presence in his life when he needed her.

“She loves you very much.”

“I love her, too. I don’t know what I would have done without her. If she hadn’t agreed to take care of me, after – ” Neal swallowed against the pain of memory. “After what happened, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“You would have come and lived with me and Joe and Peter. Your mother wouldn’t have wanted that dirty laundry aired and that son of a bitch, Adler, wouldn’t have stood a chance. And I don’t mean in court.”

Neal remembered the conversation he and Peter and overheard that first night. Uncle Joe had been very specific in his intentions towards his stepfather. Adler would simply disappear, like Jimmy Hoffa. “I’m just glad it didn’t have to go that far.”

“I am, too.”

“What are you two whispering about?” Uncle Joe asked. “I keep hearing my name mentioned, but I can’t make out what you’re saying.”

“Oh, Aunt Cathy was just telling me about the deal you’d got on the new car.” That sounded plausible enough. Joe Burke wasn’t a tightwad, but he did enjoy a good bargain.

The conversation switched over to something less fraught and it wasn’t long before they were pulling into the neighborhood. Neal wondered how long it would be before he’d stop thinking of this place as home.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Ellen wasn’t particularly looking forward to having dinner over at Joe and Cathy Burke’s place. It wasn’t the location, but all of the people. She wouldn’t have minded having a quiet dinner with Neal, maybe at the diner or even the old pizza place near the precinct. She just wasn’t in the mood to be sociable tonight.

Disappointment and bitter regret had a way of doing that.

But she’d go and pretend to have a good time. It wouldn’t be all that hard. Joe and Cathy were good people, she had liked and trusted them for years. Peter was a good kid, too. _Man_. He was a man, like Neal. 

She shook her head in disbelief. Her nephew was turning twenty in March. Where had the years gone?

After her baby brother Jimmy had been killed, she’d seriously thought about turning in her badge. She’d lost her heart and her nerve, but the brass talked her into staying. She was just a year or two shy of her twenty and she’s had her full pension and a whole other life ahead of her. So she stayed and rode a desk for the rest of her time with the NYPD.

Retiring wasn’t easy, but fate had a way of deciding what to do with her life afterwards. 

Jimmy’s widow, Veronica, had gotten remarried to some very wealthy guy. She met him a few weeks before the wedding and he’d set off all sorts of warning bells. He seemed nice, he seemed like he cared for Veronica and he seemed like he’d be a good stepfather for Neal.

That was a lot of “seemed likes” but she was a detective, and a good one that that, despite the time at the desk. There was something about Vincent Adler that made her flesh crawl. Maybe it was how he looked at Neal. Covetous. Sly. 

And Neal didn’t like him, not at all. He hadn’t been a brat about it, but she could see how badly his mother’s remarriage had wounded him. Part of her said that Neal was naturally upset because his father was being replaced. He’d loved Jimmy and idolized his memory. But the cop’s instincts said that Neal was reacting to the same thing that she’d seen in Adler, even if he didn’t know what it was.

Neal was her only living relative and even if she didn’t love him as much as she did, she had a duty to her brother to watch out for his son. She could only do that by staying close.

It was funny how things just fell into place. Veronica said she wanted to sell the house. She didn’t need it anymore, now that she was living in a mansion with her new husband. Easy enough for Ellen to buy it, to move out of the city and into the quiet of suburbia. Not so easy to give up the life she had in the city, a life she couldn’t have in the conservative confines of Westchester. But Neal was worth that sacrifice.

Somewhere along the line she found her heart again. and discovered that being a good cop was what she most wanted to be. Maybe it was how Neal looked at her, how she’d replaced James in his young, hero-worshipping heart, that made her remember what she was best at. All it took was good word from her captain, and she had a job with the county PD.

Her instincts had been right about Adler. A few months after Neal’s twelfth birthday, Joe Burke came to see her at the precinct, just as she was finishing her shift. Her heart had stopped in fear. “Neal?”

“He’s safe, but we’re going to have to do something about that son of a bitch that his mother married.”

She drove Joe down to the city and called upon a couple of uniforms she knew and the four of them marched into Adler’s office. She’d enjoyed making that bastard squirm. Of course he denied everything, saying that the boy had made it all up. But he wasn’t stupid, either. When she told him that she’d thought he was wrong and twisted and disgusting from the moment she’d met him, he blinked. 

Ellen laughed at the memory. She’d never really been great at the whole “good cop, bad cop” routine, but she mastered it right then and there. Adler believed her and agreed to let Neal live with her and that he’d never try to see him again.

And now Adler was dead, and Veronica was … 

Ellen sighed. She didn’t know what Veronica was, except that she wasn’t the sweet neighborhood girl that Jimmy had married. Money had twisted her, too. Or maybe it was guilt. After all, when you nearly let your husband rape your son, you have a hell of a lot to feel guilty about.

Ellen looked at the clock and grimaced. It was time to end this trip down memory lane and get over to the Burkes. 

Even though they lived about a dozen blocks away, she drove and ignored the castigation from her younger, more urban self. It was cold, it was February and she was nearly sixty. She wasn’t walking two blocks, let alone twelve, in the snow covered sidewalks in the wilds of suburban Westchester.

Neal answered the door and she had a moment of disconnection. It was hard to reconcile the Neal of her memories – a gangly high school student with a bright smile – with this tall, well-built young man who seemed like some young god. Until he smiled and then he was the boy she loved so much.

“Hey, you.” He wrapped his arms around her.

She hugged him back. “Hey, yourself.” 

Of course there were the formalities of visiting. Saying hello to Joe and Cathy, to Peter; making small talk.

Cathy asked her if she’d like a drink. 

“Beer would be fine.” The Burkes were like her: middle-class, blue collar. Wine-cooler swilling yuppies might be taking over the neighborhood, but there was nothing wrong with a bottle of beer.

She did have to raise an eyebrow when Joe handed a bottle to her nephew, who wasn’t twenty-one yet.

Cathy caught her eye. “He’s a senior in college, and if you think he hasn’t been drinking since he was a freshman, think again.”

“Yeah, yeah. But he’s …”

“I know.” 

Ellen sighed. “He’s just so grown up. I was just thinking about where the years have gone.”

Cathy hugged her. “Joe and are the same way. We look at Peter and think, wasn’t it just yesterday that he was our little baby? Wasn’t I just bringing him home from the hospital? And now, he’s a man.”

“They’ll be getting married soon.”

Cathy gave her a strange look.

“Oh, come on, Catherine Burke, you can’t tell me that you’re not thinking about grand babies already? That every time Peter tells you about the latest girl, you wonder if she’s the one and if you should be giving Peter your engagement ring.”

“Actually, no.” Cathy’s voice was a bit faint. “Do you get that from Neal?”

“No – and I don’t know what’s wrong with my nephew. I know that college kids don’t rush to get married, but he never tells me about the girls he dates. I mean, I might be his aunt and it might be a little embarrassing, but you’d think…”

Cathy nodded. “I don’t want either of them to rush into a relationship – get married because they feel like it’s something the _ought_ to do, when it’s not something either of them really want.”

Ellen thought that phrasing was a little strange. “I don’t mean that Neal should get married for my sake, but he’d be happier if he were settled. ”

Cathy didn’t say anything and Ellen felt a little foolish. Neal was only twenty, he did have his whole life ahead of him. “I guess you’re right. In one breath I’m upset that he’s having a beer, and in the next, I’m concerned that he’s not looking at getting married. Let him play the field for a little while. He’s still got graduate school ahead of him.”

“I wasn’t going to point out your inconsistencies.” 

Ellen laughed. “Thank you very much for that.”

Neal joined them, and it might have been a trick of the light, but for a second, he looked too much like Jimmy. “Everything all right?”

She touched his cheek. “You’ve got your father’s eyes – I never noticed how much until just this moment.”

Neal kissed her palm. “Thank you.”

“You doing okay? Excited about law school?”

“I think I’ll be more excited once I get through this last semester. I’m almost done, but there’s no slacking off. I’m carrying a full course load and I want to graduate _summa cum laude_.”

Cathy, who’d drifted off to give them some privacy, came back and told them that dinner was on the table.

The meal was surprisingly enjoyable. Not the food, which was a little too rich for her – apparently her nephew and Peter had decided to prepare the menu – but the conversation. She knew that Neal was smart and fun and interesting, but she was also his aunt and therefore prejudiced in his favor. Listening to the conversation, some story about a trip he and Peter had taken last summer, to Italy of all places, really brought home to her just how much of a man her nephew was.

He had them in stitches, explaining how Peter had inadvertently asked a nun to marry him and how they’d almost ended up in a Roman jail. Ellen thought that perhaps Peter had been trying to solicit a prostitute, but maybe not. Neal wouldn’t embarrass his best friend like that – not in front of his parents.

The two boys – damn it – _men_ – exchanged looks, and Neal actually flushed. Maybe her theory wasn’t so far from the truth.

Her little Neal had grown up into a good man, a smart man, a strong and wise man who was going to have such a bright future.

Ten years ago, she’d left a life that lost half its meaning and sacrificed the half that still meant something. Yes, it was worth it.

She waved off dessert. “But I wouldn’t say no to a cup of coffee.” 

Joe asked her if she wanted decaf. 

“No – too many years drinking cop coffee. Nothing keeps me awake these days.” Well, nothing except regrets.

After finishing coffee and dessert, they moved back into the living room. Joe and Cathy sat down, but Neal stood, and so did Peter, shoulder to shoulder next to the fireplace. They looked at each other and Ellen couldn’t decipher that look. She couldn’t read Neal’s body language either. Well, not quite true. If it was anyone else, she’d say that he was nervous, almost frightened. But this was Neal and he had nothing to be nervous or frightened about.

“Aunt Ellen.” Neal took a visible breath. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

The seriousness of his tone underscored his odd, closed-off posture. “Neal, what’s the matter?” She had a terrible thought. “Are you sick?

“No.”

“Oh, thank god.”

“I’m gay.”

She shook her head, she didn’t hear that right. “What?”

“Aunt Ellen, I’m gay.” Neal sat down next to her and gave her a small, tentative smile. 

“No, you’re not gay.” She had nightmares about Neal, particularly when he went off to college. That he’d fall in with a fast crowd or he’d get hurt or killed. Boston was a big city and Neal was so young and vulnerable. This was a nightmare she never had. “You’re not gay. You dated girls in high school. No, that’s not possible.” Ellen shook her head, denying Neal’s words.

“I am. I have been all my life.”

She had a sick thought, maybe Adler had been right. Maybe Neal had … _No_ That was not right and she knew better than to even consider that. Then she remembered everything she’d given up, everything she’d lost, to care for Neal. “You dirty faggot.” She stood up and looked around the room, at the shocked and angry faces of Joe and Cathy Burke, of Peter Burke.

Pieces began to fall into place. “You – you!” Ellen pointed an accusing finger at Neal’s best friend. No not his best friend, his _boyfriend_. “You filthy bastard. You’re fucking him. You did this!” 

Neal actually tried to defend Peter. “Peter has nothing to do with me being gay. You know that.” 

She turned on Peter’s parents. “How long? How long have you know about this?”

Joe answered quietly. “We’ve known for a little while, but the boys came out to us at Christmas.” 

That knowledge stabbed at her, a betrayal of the worst kind. “And you accept it? You don’t have a problem with your son fucking my nephew.”

Joe looked like he was about to hit her. “This is my home and you’ll keep a civil tongue in your mouth. And no, I don’t have a problem. I love my son without conditions, and I love Neal very much, too. And I am happy that they have found joy with each other.”

Finding no support there, Ellen turned back to Neal and poison flooded her tongue. “If your father was alive, he’d be ashamed of you. He’d wish you were never born. I wish you'd never been born.” She felt herself shaking in anger, in anguish. “We’re through, you and I – you’re dead to me.”

She wasn’t crying. No, these were tears of rage. She found her purse and her coat and stormed out of the house, out of this life that she’d sacrificed everything for. A pointless, stupid, empty sacrifice.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

**April, 1998**

_Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine,_  
et lux perpetua luceat eis.  
Requiescant in pace.  
Amen. 

The priest spoke the words of prayer, but Neal really didn’t hear them. Peter was a warm and solid presence behind him, Uncle Joe stood to his right and Aunt Cathy on his left. It was hard to believe that she was gone. She hadn’t told him that she was sick, dying. 

He thought he’d have more time with her. There was always a case, always a reason to put off a trip to Florida. He and Ellen talked a couple of times a month, but he hadn’t seen her in a year. Guilt and shame swamped him. 

They’d reconciled, he’d forgiven her and Ellen seemed to be okay with him and Peter, but he could tell that she was still uncomfortable with the two of them together. It was ironic that she’d told him that day in the parking lot at Quantico that she wanted him to be safe and happy, and not to have to live a life when he’d had to hide all of the time. Ironic because he never felt comfortable in being open in his relationship with Peter, at least with her.

Over the last decade, he’d gone to see her a half a dozen times, always traveling alone. Ellen would be polite and ask about Peter. He’d tell her that Peter was fine and couldn’t get away and Peter’s name would never come again during his visit. 

The priest finished and they all said “amen.” The grave diggers were waiting and the four of them – his whole family now – headed back to the car.

Peter drove, but as was their habit, Neal sat in the back seat with Aunt Cathy. She just held his hand and Neal tried not to cry. He hadn’t felt like this when they’d buried his mother a half a dozen years ago. He’d had a funeral for her out of a sense of obligation, nothing more.

This, though, this hurt. 

Neal leaned his head against the glass, the chill easing some of the pain in his head. His heart would take a lot longer to heal.

Birds were singing and the whole neighborhood was awash with the colors of early spring – the flowering cherry trees, the bright forsythias and the early green blush on the maples and sycamores. It didn’t seem right that there was so much life when he’d just come from the cemetery.

Peter pulled him into the living room and they sat on the old couch. Peter put his arm around him and Neal rested his head on his shoulder. He couldn’t talk, he was feeling too much, needing too much and just grateful that he had this man to turn to. Tonight, when they were home, Peter would hold him again and tell him it was okay to cry.

For now, this was enough.

“Neal?”

Uncle Joe was standing there, holding a small package. “This came for you a few days ago. It was from your Aunt Ellen. She asked us to give it to you afterwards …” 

Neal took it and opened the package. He was surprised to see that it was a VCR tape, “For Neal” written on the label.

“We have a player – if you want to watch it.” Aunt Cathy had joined them.

Neal took a deep breath. “Yes – I would.”

“Do you want us to give you some privacy?” Uncle Joe asked.

“No.” He took another breath. “I need you – all of you.”

Peter got up and put the tape in. Joe and Cathy sat on his other side and as Peter rejoined them, the screen flickered and Ellen’s face came into focus. She looked like a woman dying of cancer, but she was smiling.

_“Hey, you. I know this is probably kind of weird but there were things I wanted to say but I just don't have the strength to write them down. The people here at the hospice were able to set this up for me.”_

Ellen looked down at something and her face seemed to crumple and there were tears in her eyes as she looked back at the camera. She lifted her hand and there was a picture in it – one that Neal had never seen before. Two cops in uniform and a little boy, about three years old, wearing a uniform hat.

_“Your mom took this, it’s me and your dad and you on your third birthday. You always loved to wear my hat.”_

Ellen turned the picture over before continuing.

_“There are a lot of things I wanted to say, but most of all, I want to tell you how proud I am of you. Not because you’re an FBI agent, but because you had the courage and the strength to do something I never could. You lived your life as you were meant to live it, out and proud and completely free. You love and are loved and that’s so damn lucky._

_“I said such terrible things to you that day. Things I didn’t mean, things I couldn’t stop myself from saying. I know you’ve forgiven me, but I also know that it’s never been right between us. In these last weeks, I’ve come to realize that I still have a way to make it right. By giving you the truth._

_“I said those horrible words because – because I was a sad, lonely and disappointed woman. I’d been too scared of what the world would say to be truthful with the people I loved. And most of all, to be truthful to myself._

_“I am gay, too.”_

Ellen stopped and reached for a glass of water. Her hands were shaking so badly that an aide had to help her hold it. Eventually, she continued.

_“I had someone, once. Her name was Ruth and she was a photographer. We lived in the same building in Greenwich Village and became close. Very close. She was there for me when they came and told me about your dad, she held me and kept me going and was the best person in the whole world._

_“Nothing else in the world mattered when we were together. She didn’t care that I couldn’t do anything more than ride a desk after Jimmy died. She told me that it made her a little glad, if just that she’d never have to worry that someone, someday, would knock on her door and have to tell her something terrible happened._

_“But good things don’t last. She didn’t want to live in the closet and didn’t understand why I couldn’t come out. She didn’t understand about the dyke jokes and what would happen to me if they found out in the precinct._

_“Ruth told me if that was such a big deal, then I should retire. Even if I couldn’t get my full pension, it would be okay. I thought about it, I really did. But in the end, I couldn’t. I told her to wait; it was just another year or so._

_“She agreed, but I could tell that she wasn’t happy about it and the cracks began to show. Things got bad between us when your mother remarried. The fancy invitation came and I was allowed to bring a guest. Of course, Ruth wanted to come with me, but I said no, that it wouldn’t look right._

_“The expression on her face killed me. It was like I’d stabbed her. She said, ‘What do you care? You really don’t know these people.’_

_“I told her that my nephew would be there and I didn’t want him to know that his aunt was a lesbian. I didn’t want him to be ashamed of me.”_

Ellen stopped and buried her face in her hands. There was a voice from the other side of the camera, asking her if she needed to stop. She shook her head.

_“Whatever we had was over. And I guess it was for the best, because I saw what everyone else had missed about Vincent Adler and I knew I had to leave the city and stay close._

_“You needed me and it was easy to forget about who I’d left behind. We were a good team, the two of us and I like to think that you became the man you are because of me – at least in a small way. Except your courage to be who you are. Because God knows, you didn’t get that from me.”_

Ellen reached for something, another photo that she held up to the camera. This picture was of a dark haired woman with full lips and laughing eyes.

_This is Ruth. And I never forgot her – as much as I tried. You were away and you weren’t coming back to Brookville Falls for good, so maybe I could try to find that life again, to live for myself again. It wasn’t all that hard to find Ruth, even after all those years. She’d left New York, moved to Key West and become a famous photographer. That winter, the year before you graduated, I’d gone to Florida to find her. I didn’t know if she’d even want to talk to me. She might even have had another partner – but I had to try._

_“It was as if the years between us never happened, as if all the bad stuff – my stupidity – never happened. For six weeks, we lived in paradise. We were perfect, everything was perfect, until she said she wanted to meet you._

_“Ruth could read me like a book. She said she had never been anyone’s dirty secret and she wasn’t going to start now. If I wouldn’t introduce her to you as my partner, we were through. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to admit to you that I was gay and Ruth told me to get out and never come back._

_“So I did. I returned to New York and sold the house. And like some sick, twisted freak, I bought the condo in Boca Raton thinking that even if I couldn’t have Ruth, at least I could live in the same state as her. Does that craziness even make sense?”_

Ellen paused again, struggling against her memories, against the pain to obviously eating away at her.

_“You know what happened after that. You told me you were gay and it was like all my failures had slapped me in my face. I’d spent my life in denial and then you blithely tell me that you’re gay._

_“And even after you forgave me, seeing you with Peter, seeing your happiness, tore me apart. I was a bitter, evil and jealous woman. Small and petty to be envious that my nephew had what I threw away._

_“I’ve got no right to your understanding, but I’m hoping that you can understand, if just a little bit. I’ve lived my life filled with vain, terrible regrets. I’d do everything differently – everything except watch out for you, take care of you, love you like you were my own son.”_

Ellen wiped the tears from eyes.

_“I have no time left. A week, maybe two. The doctors tell me that it’s not going to hurt too badly when I finally let go. I hope not. I can tell you that I’m not afraid – not of death. Not anymore. I love you, Neal Caffrey. Don’t forget that.”_

The tape clicked and came to a stop. The television screen went dark.

Neal sobbed and Peter held on to him, murmuring words of comfort. But he couldn’t be comforted. It was all so unfair.

__

FIN


End file.
